Missing person found

This was the last time I saw the gentle young woman A from Guatemala who cleaned our house. When she had left that day, we did our usual exchange of “Nos vemos en dos semanas.” But then she just disappeared with no trace soon after her daughter had napped in our laundry room.

A had been with us for quite a few years, often bringing her older daughter, who sat and colored or quietly took care of herself while her mother worked. They even came with gifts to the baby shower (photo above) I had arranged for Glenda, another younger woman from Guatemala.

This total lack of communication was not at all like A, who would always call if she wanted to change the appointed time to clean our house. And we were always fine with being flexible. But two weeks, three weeks, four weeks came and went and no phone call.

I had tried to call her cell phone, only to find out that it was no longer in service. I knew something very bad had happened to A.

That was two months ago. Since then, we’ve found someone else – this time a mother-daughter team from El Salvador – to clean our house.

Then just yesterday my husband answered the phone and heard the very weak voice of A on the other end. The Spanish always sends him looking for me. But the voice was so weak, I couldn’t begin to understand what A was trying to tell me, other than something catastrophic had happened to her body and she was in a hospital in Bethesda.

I asked if her husband was there with her and sure enough he was. He told me that she had been in the hospital for 7 weeks with a severe case of lupus. Apparently she had the disease before becoming pregnant with her now year-old baby. During the pregnancy she didn’t take her medication for fear of harming the baby.

But soon after the baby’s birth, the disease returned and became progressively worse. We had noticed a definite change in her health and in her ability to do her work, but knew nothing of the fact that she had lupus.

Her husband said she will be coming home soon, but in what condition? I have so many unanswered questions about A and her future. I’ve never known if she and her husband are in the country legally. I don’t know if they have health insurance, but imagine not.

Although most people no longer die from lupus, it is an auto-immune disease that often results in chronic fatigue. So how will A ever work again to pay her way in the group house, where everyone shares responsibility for the mortgage?

As relieved as I was to hear from A yesterday, my heart goes out to her as she tries to make sense of this most recent blow life has dealt her. I will be there to help her as much as I can, but she is probably destined to struggle, often with extreme pain, for the rest of her life. That seems like a severe sentence for someone barely older than my daughter.